


Seven is a Holy Number

by WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Confession of feelings… but also… denial of feelings, Internalized homophobia? Internalized homophobia., Knife Play, Light Angst, Light doesn’t want to be dead, Light is a mess emotionally in this one, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Sexual Kink, Post-Yotsuba Arc (Death Note), Suicidal Thoughts, biblical imagery, but he doesn’t exactly want to be alive either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:22:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28531404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch/pseuds/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch
Summary: The first time they did this, Light actually cried, despite the fact that it was his idea.The first time they did this, Light isn’t so sure what compelled him, being that he had no memory of his crimes and nothing to fuel his self-destructive rage.The both of them are going to be so exhausted after this, that neither will be bothered to argue about anything. Light will simply text his father that he is planning to stay at headquarters to work through the night, and they will collapse into bed and not touch each other but draw their breaths in time. Light will sleep like he had before he discovered the death note-- that is to say, peacefully.---In which Light and L have an odd little ritual that both of them have some very complicated feelings about. Light isn't sure if he wants to be anyone or anything anymore, and L just wants to know that his only friend is okay.
Relationships: L/Yagami Light
Comments: 9
Kudos: 63





	Seven is a Holy Number

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I wrote after listening to an episode of a podcast where a woman spoke very emphatically about her love of knife play. This was meant to be short and smutty, but then I listened to Mitski while writing and well.. you know how it goes.
> 
> I recommend listening to First Love/Late Spring or Last Words of a Shooting Star, both by Mitski for the full experience.

1.  
It’s not that Light likes pain; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. He never enjoys the white, searing bite of the blade into his skin. He doesn’t like the blood either; he is always queasy after the fact, watching L wash his hands. Light hates to look at the scarring it leaves. He hates the way it itches under his clothing the next day and the day after that. The whole ordeal always leaves him feeling breakable, vulnerable, and sticky from blood and sweat both.

His wet fingers grip the white porcine edge of the tub now; his knees ache from the position he is in, even though he still has the fabric of his jeans to protect his joints from the unforgiving basin. Still, the muscles in his legs tremble, the lukewarm, ruddy water lapping against his mid-thigh where the denim clings to his skin.

The first time they did this, Light actually cried, despite the fact that it was his idea. He’d snatched a letter opener and carried the secret sliver of metal around, burning a hole in his back pocket for hours. As soon as the two of them were alone that night, mid-October, he’d handed it over to L with a straightforward request.

The first time they did this, Light isn’t sure what compelled him, being that he had no memory of his crimes and nothing to fuel his self-destructive rage. Light wonders now as he listens to L clean the knife by swishing it around in the water, if perhaps some sliver of guilt or anger persisted, even when he was without his memories of the death note.

The tip of the blade pressing into his shoulder blade, dancing over the dip of his spine, pulls Light from his musings.

“Okay?” L asks as he uses the blade’s flat to smear the blood across the canvas of Lights back like a painter with a pallet knife. 

Light never answers because no, this is not okay. He isn’t really sure what he’s doing, allowing his mortal enemy to carve him up. Light is a God; Gods are not meant to bleed. Certainly not at the hands of a heretic.

Still, Light can’t ever bring himself to say no. The aftermath of it all is too sweet, and if Light is honest with himself--and he rarely is when it comes to his feelings about L--he can’t do without it.

After all this, L is going to wipe his back with hands warmed from the bathwater, L is going to wrap him in a towel, L is going to wait for Light to change into a dry pair of pants, and then he is going to sit with Light on the bathroom floor and bandage his cuts. 

Both of them will be so exhausted after this that neither will be bothered to argue about anything. Light will simply text his father that he is planning to stay at headquarters to work through the night, and they will collapse into bed and not touch each other but draw their breaths in time. Light will sleep like he had before he discovered the death note-- that is to say, peacefully.

2.  
They never do this naked. This isn’t sex. It’s something more than that, or so Light tells himself. He can’t fathom the idea that either of them gets off from this. Though, if Light has learned anything through the years of being Kira, it is that just because something is unimaginable does not mean it isn’t true.

Still, Light is reasonably certain this isn’t about sex. The clothing helps him remember what this, remember who they are. L doesn’t touch him any more than is strictly necessary. 

Light builds up brick by brick a mythos around what they are doing. Some days he lets L cut him so that it might fuel his own rage. Other days, he lets L prick his arms with sewing needles while he lays in bed half under the covers dreaming of the whole world just stopping for one glorious minute. Nothing to plan ahead for, nothing to grasp for in the hazy past.

3.  
Light has imagined letting L take a knife to his temple. He would let L just press and press until the screaming, murderous, living thing inside his skull that Light called his ego fell silent. 

He imagines it would feel something like drifting off to sleep beside L in comfortable silence.

It’s not that Light wants to be dead. He has too much to do, too many ends he can’t bear to leave un-tied; Gods are immortal, and Light is nothing less than holy. But sometimes, in the small hours when night gives way to morning, Light thinks that he’d really like a shot at being someone else. It’s a thought quickly banished.

4.  
On the one hand, the cutting, the way L makes him kneel, is meant to make him feel small, human, and fragile, but Light can’t help but picture himself as Jesus pinned to the cross. A cross of his own design, wrought by his own hands and mind— 

The thought leaves him as L brings down the blade again. Light winces and breaths out long and hard, listening to the water lap against the side of the tub. Maybe this is why they do this, the reprieve from his own thoughts. Perhaps Light likes the way the pain stills everything within himself. He is free of the ever-present forward momentum, his poisonous drive when L has him like this.

With a hand on Light’s waist, L pushes the boy forward and re-positions himself behind Light, his own knees clearly under some strain. The hand warms him for a moment before L presses his thumb into a cut, and Light jerks away, nearly toppling the two of them over.

“Light-Kun,” L mutters, holding him in place with his hip.

Light let’s his mind drift, conjuring up an image of L nailing his hands to a cross. Light tries to imagine what that would feel like, surely much worse than this. But then L presses the blade down hard, and Light can’t imagine anything that could possibly hurt more.

Sometimes, when L has him bent over the edge of the tub or the sink, or gripping, white-knuckled, a bedpost, Light wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all; sometimes he does, manically. Other times he wants to cry, and he lets himself very quietly. In both cases, he can blame the emotional outbursts on a pain response. 

In many ways, L has seen more of him than anyone else, paradoxical as L is the only person who might be able to hurt Light with information about the cadence of his laughter or the hiccups between his sobs.

Today, soaked, blood oozing down his back and staining the hem of his pants, Light lets tears well up in his eyes and doesn’t try to blink them away. 

Light reaches up an obvious hand to rub at his eyes. He doesn’t try to hide the fact he is crying. He is sure that his own tears are part of the draw for L. As much as Light hates him, and oh does he hate him, he also wants to remain interesting. 

Light is okay with giving away pieces of himself for these quiet moments.

“Do you want to count?” L asks, breaking the silence, rubbing the flat of the blade down from the base of Light’s neck, where soft tufts of hair slick with sweat stick to the skin, to the middle of Light’s back.

“How many?” Light breaths out, feeling L wipe a damp thumb over one of the cuts.

“Seven?”

“Are you feeling that vindictive today?”

“Vindictive? No.”

Light folds his arms and buries his face, and waits for L to move. He doesn’t.

“What?” Light asks, head still firmly tucked away, face hidden from the detective. 

L dips the knife back into the rose-colored water while he thinks, swirls it around, resulting in a soft swishing sound, “You don’t like me to see you, do you, Light-Kun.”

“I don’t want to talk right now.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, clearly,” Light wipes his face firmly once or twice with his forearm before turning to look at L. His jeans hang even lower than usual on his narrow hips from the added weight of the water. The hem of his white shirt has turned a dusty pink where the fabric has met with the rosy water. L fiddles with the knife like he would a piece of candy or a child might a favorite toy.

“Alright, you’ve seen me now. Are you happy?”

L raises the tip of the knife to his chin, then probes his lips with the tip of it, Light cringes at the image. It’s unhygienic. 

“Why do you not like me to see your face?”

“I don’t want to talk L, if you’re going to talk, I’ll just go now.” Light spits and means none of it. He won’t go because if he does, he won’t be able to sleep. At least when he and L share a room, Ryuk seems to make himself scant, which is a blessing; it is difficult to sleep with those undead yellow eyes staring at you. Light can almost pretend he’d never gotten involved with the death note, which is about as good a sleeping aid as Ambien.

L closes his teeth around the metal, and Light cringes, “No, you won’t.”

Light just sighs because there is really no use in lying to L about this.

“I won’t.” he concedes, “I just like it when we’re quiet.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re insufferable.”

It’s a rare occurrence that Light gets the last word in conversation with L.

5.  
Seven strokes of the blade later, and Light lays back in the warm bath as L hops out of the tub. Light watches him stand uneasily; L’s bloodied, waterlogged shirt hangs off his slim shoulders. He looks absolutely drowned. 

L disappears into the bedroom without a word or a glance back at him to change up and find Light a pair of pajamas. Though he’d been released from the handcuffs for a week or so, Light had yet to fully move out of their once shared quarters.

Light drags his hands through the water, watching as wispy plumes of red pulse through the water in time with his heartbeat. L always tells Light not to lay around in the water for too long… something about blood loss, but the feeling is heady.

Light has never been drunk nor done drugs, but he imagines the feeling would be something like this; an airy looseness, a fluidity in the mind and joints.

L comes back into the room thoroughly laundered, Light’s pajama set slung over his shoulder. 

“Light-Kun?” he questions, plodding over to the side of the tub and peering down at Light.

“A minute more.” He mutters, closing his eyes and skinning down until only his nose and eyes are above the waterline.

“But Light-Kun--”

“Count for me. I’ll start, 60, 59, 58…”

“Blood loss is a very serious--” But Light blocks out the very irritating sound of L’s voice as he slides down the bath until he is fully submerged. 

Light holds his breath and imagines never coming back up. He imagines that he’ll never take another breath. It’s calming, the idea of never having to worry about breathing again, or anything at all. He could stay here in the warm embrace of the water, feeling little sparks of static pop in his limbs, letting his mind float away, and away. 

But he can’t stay here. The world is watching him. The weight of Kira’s new world, a utopia like the kingdom of God, is riding on his every action. He can not get distracted, he can not blink, and he certainly can not drown himself.

Gods are not afforded quiet moments alone in the bath.

6.  
Perhaps Light doesn’t like pain, but he does like what follows it.

L sits Light on the edge of the tub and does his best to patch him up with a melange of bandaids, gauze, and medical tape. Of course, L is brilliant at this too, god forbid he ever struggle with anything. 

The soft sounds of paper tearing fill the room as L opens bandages with dexterous fingers.

“Is Light-Kun open to talking now?” L asks from behind Light, smearing antibiotic ointment over the first of many cuts. Light sighs at the contact. The needling pain persists, but this mollified dull ache rolls through him comfortably.

“It depends what you want to talk about, Ryuzaki.”

“You will like this topic,”

Light turns to look at him. Light waits for him to elaborate; he does

“I want to talk about you.”

Light rolls his eyes and tries not to let L’s obvious request for verbal sparring ruin what should be their silent moment, “Sometimes, I wish you had not been granted the gift of speech.”

“If I were mute, you wouldn’t find me half as interesting.”

L has a point. Light suspects he wouldn’t enjoy this half as much if it wasn’t the detective holding the knife.

“Fine, what do you want to know?” Light crosses his arms over his chest and immediately regrets it as he feels a wound split open in the wake of his movement.

L presses a warm, flat palm to the sight of pain and applies some pressure, and miraculously, the stinging subsides. 

“You don’t like pain.”

“That’s not a question, Ryuzaki.”

“You are a peculiar person, Light-Kun.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Light mutters, trying to dismiss him.

L stops his administrations and comes to sit next to Light on the edge of the tub, having to sit correctly for fear of falling over, “You don’t like it,” L repeats, staring straight ahead at the tiled wall.

Light nods vaguely, unsure of where the conversation is headed.

“Why do you let me?”

It’s the exact question Light dreaded because he himself doesn’t know the answer. 

“Why does it matter to you? I let you, and you must like it, too. I don’t think this warrants discussion.”

Light feels more than he sees L shrug; the detective sits shoulder to shoulder with him, “Because you are my friend. My only friend.”

“You can drop the act, Ryuzaki, you’re not going to get me to confess to anything with flattery.”

L does turn to look at him then, seemingly hurt by what Light had just said, his usually impassive face contorted, “I mean what I’m saying. I care about you. You’re the second person in my life I have ever cared about. The first is the man who raised me.”

Light’s knee jerk reaction is one of pity and surprise, but he quells it easily. This is clearly just L playing mind games when Light is in his weakest moment, in pain and dizzy from blood loss. Light grimaces inwardly, what a low blow, what a dishonest move in their game of mental chess.

“You don’t mean that, I’m tired. Look, just finish up my back, and then we can sleep.”

L shakes his head, “I do, Light.” L pauses for a moment and looks up at the ceiling as if searching for something. He fidgets somewhat, brings a thumb up to his lips in his customary way before placing an unsure hand on Light’s knee.

Light glances down at the point of contact, watches L’s slim fingers splay out.

“Sometimes, I think I might be in love with you,” L won’t meet his eyes.

Light waits for L to retract the statement, turning it somehow into an insult. When nothing of the sort comes, Light has to suppress a laugh at such a ludicrous idea, “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really don’t think you’re capable of that.”

“You might not mean to be rude, but you are.”

Light rolls his eyes and pulls his leg away from L, “come on, stop playing mind games. Finish up so I can get to sleep. Or do you want me to bleed out on the bathroom floor?”

L gets up silently and moves back to his previous position, and finishes his work quickly. Light keeps his eyes closed as L works, leaning forward on his knees with his chin resting in his palms. Light had never read the bible the whole way through, but he knew enough to distrust those who have cleaned you and professed their love.

7.  
They lay next to each other in what used to be their bed, a universe of space between them, drawing their breaths in tandem across the chasm. 

“I meant it.” L murmurs into the silent air. Light doesn’t respond, pretending to be asleep.

Against the back of his eyelids, a memory of a night like this one plays out in a confused jumble of colors and blurred motion.

Once, on a frigid night, they sat out on the balcony watching the first snow of the year dust the tops of skyscrapers. Light had imagined it was volcano ash and that everything was coming to a quiet conclusion; he and L watching as humanity is snuffed out by a damp towel; an anticlimactic ending.

L cut Light’s palm open that night, and they both watched the steam lift from the wound and vanish in the cold dark. One of them had remarked how black the blood looked in the moonlight; Light can’t remember which of them said it.

Light had licked himself clean that one time because L had forgotten a towel, and the blood pooling in his palm was starting to freeze. 

That night, blood drying on his lips, the glow of the dormant city and the stars reflecting in his eyes, the urban haze of orange framing him, was the only time Light ever suspected L wanted to kiss him. 

They didn’t, of course. What they do is hurt each other, nothing more, and certainly nothing less.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hello, lovely readers! Thank you so much for making it to the end of this pretentious thing! I commend you. If you have any thoughts at all, I'd love to hear them! Even if it has nothing particularly to do with my fic and you just want to shout about Lawlight, I'm here to listen!


End file.
